When I was eighteen I had a job as a "deluxer" for the soon-to-open Sears at the Broward Mall. The job entailed prepping and setting up the display model appliances on the sales floor: removing the carton, cleaning off the tape, assembling any parts shipped disassembled, and so on. It was only a short-term job, though, just the few weeks before the mall officially opened.

Frankly, the job sucked. The building wasn't yet finished, so there was no air conditioning, and I was dragging ranges and dishwashers up a non-functional escalator to the appliance display floor. Also, the smell of a brand new refrigerator is not pleasant, as I think they use formaldehyde to keep mold from forming inside during shipment. Between the heart, the exertion, and the chemicals, I spent most of each day that summer feeling like I was about to vomit. But hey, the money was good.

One day our task was to drag up some washers and dryers and set them up. I'd been on the job for a few weeks, so we were getting pretty fast at it; we had the boxes upstairs and the machines prepped quickly. The supervisor showed us where to arrange them, along a low wall with power outlets and water spigots spaced along the way. Since we were ahead of schedule, we went ahead and plugged 'em in and attached the hoses, then took our break.

When we came back there was a large group of men standing around the appliance area where we'd been working. Our supervisor asked me if I'd hooked up the machines, and I told him I had. I was a little concerned that I'd attached something incorrectly, but I couldn't imagine what it might be. One of the other guys, a stocky, bearded man, asked me if I was a union electrician or a union plumber. I told him that I wasn't, and he turned to one of the other men and said "Call the boss and tell him to shut it all down." A minute later whistles started blowing all over the building.

Our supervisor sighed, and told me and my work-partner to sit down and wait for him to come back. He and a couple of the union men walked off toward the offices, arguing all the way. One of the guys who stayed behind asked me if I was really so stupid that I'd try to get away with doing union work. I asked him in earnest what we had done that was wrong. He informed me that only a trained union electrician was allowed to plug anything in on this job site, and only a trained union plumber could attach any hose that carried water. I thought he was joking, and I said so.

That's when the shouting started. I was just some snot-nosed punk who didn't have any idea how the world worked, and I had better not try and interfere in union business or I could get hurt. I told him that if it took a union guy to stick a three-prong plug in the wall the world was in sorry shape. He shouted that I was taking food off his table, and I pointed out that he didn't look like he'd missed a lot of meals. I'm certain we would have come to blows if the supervisor hadn't returned.

The consequences were minor. Work would resume on the mall at once, provided that my partner and I apologize for our error. I was told that failure to apologize would result in my immediate termination. I really needed the money, so I did it.

The union teams then spent the next three hours undoing and redoing what had taken us fifteen minutes to do. On one trip walking past the gang the electrician asked me if I had learned anything today. I told him that yes, I had. I learned that the purpose of a union was to get incompetent people jobs, and that there is nothing lazier on earth than a union worker. From there it got ugly.

After my experience at the mall I spent the next decade denouncing unions at every opportunity. In a time when I was only marginally politically aware, I went out of my to tell people my story, doing everything I could to hurt the union cause, based on the actions of a couple of chuckleheads. No, it isn't exactly a shining moment in my political career, using revenge as my motivation for political action.

Oddly enough, my natural tendency is to side with unions. There are a great many employers who will take advantage of their workers without a second thought, if there is no check to their power. Unfortunately, the corruption inherent with accumulation of power doesn't respect ideological boundaries, and unions can be — and are — corrupted just as quickly as corporations.

In the end I suppose I did learn a couple of things. Unions are full of assholes, the same as any other group of people. Revenge is a poor reason for action, particularly when innocent people will be caught in the crossfire. And needing the money is not sufficient reason to do something you find personally odious.